


graveyard thirteen

by nowrunalong



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), DC Extended Universe
Genre: Afterlife, Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:42:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29116188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nowrunalong/pseuds/nowrunalong
Summary: Buffy’s not alone at the pearly gates of Heaven.
Relationships: Clark Kent & Buffy Summers
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11
Collections: X-Ship - The Crossover Flash Exchange





	graveyard thirteen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Val_Creative](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/gifts).



Buffy’s not alone at the pearly gates of Heaven.

As her eyes adjust to her surroundings, she squints through the brightness at the other figure, standing a little ahead of her on the path. He’s a tall man in a plaid shirt, standing with his hands clasped together, looking out beyond the gateway.

A minute passes, and Buffy realizes it’s not bright here at all. Her eyes had been overwhelmed with electric light when she’d fallen into Glory’s portal. These gates aren’t pearly, either. They’re black iron, cold in the muted light of a clouded-over sky.

On the other side of the gates, there’s a graveyard and a tired cornfield. It’s not one of Sunnydale’s twelve cemeteries.

“I’m guessing you’re not Saint Peter,” she says wryly to plaid-shirt-guy.

“No. I’m Clark.” Clark-not-Saint-Peter turns to face her, his eyebrows creased in a puzzled frown. “Do I know you?”

Buffy shrugs. “I don’t think so.” And then: “Are you dead, too?”

“I think so.”

“So this is the next dimension.” Buffy takes a few steps forward, approaching the cemetery gates. “I thought there’d be a welcoming committee, you know, maybe a fanfare of little cupids, or at least a bunch of unfriendly demons.”

“Demons? Were you expecting Hell?”

“I wasn’t expecting anything, really. There are thousands of Hell dimensions, you know, not to mention all the worlds that are kind of like ours, just a little different. Like the world without shrimp. But if you asked me where I thought I’d end up, I wouldn’t have guessed—” Buffy frowns at the flat, grassy landscape.

“Kansas,” Clark supplies helpfully.

“Kansas,” Buffy repeats. “So are we supposed to go in there?’

Clark looks to the cemetery again. “I think my body is in there,” he says. “My mom would have buried me here, after I died. We lived just up the road.” He thinks for a second. “She still lives just up the road.”

“Do you _want_ to go in there?” Buffy asks him.

After a moment, Clark shakes his head. “Honestly, not really.”

They walk up the road instead, both curious if Clark’s mom’s house is here. It is, but Martha is not. Clark is relieved, Buffy can tell, because if he’d found his mother inside, he would never be able to rest. If Dawn were here, Buffy wouldn’t rest, either. Sacrificing yourself to save your loved ones, to save the world, is really only worth the price if it works.

As they venture further into the house, a tiny, selfish part of Buffy hopes that she’ll find her own mom in Martha’s kitchen. It wouldn’t make sense for Joyce to be here, but she hopes all the same. This world is Clark’s, not Buffy’s, but it had led her to a mother’s home.

There’s no one in the kitchen, though, nor anywhere else in the house, although it feels warm compared to the biting chilliness outside, like someone had turned on the furnace in preparation for their arrival.

“I appreciate the company,” Clark says, when they sit down at the dinner table. He brings Buffy tea in a mug emblazoned with the name of his high school. She lights a candle she’d found on the coffee table in the next room. It smells of herbs—lavender and sage—and reminds her of Dawn and Willow and home. “I’ve spent a lot of time on my own. Never liked it, though.”

Buffy had never been alone for long, although she’d often felt lonesome. She understands what Clark means, though, and returns the small smile he directs her way.

“I like your mom’s house,” she tells him. “It’s cozy.”

The old farmhouse has the air of a place that had been loved and lived-in for so many years that it would feel welcoming to anyone who stepped foot inside it.

Buffy thinks about wandering Sunnydale as a ghost, unable to see or interact with the living, and is surprised to find that she’s glad to be somewhere else entirely.

She can find peace here, and rest. No one expects a thing of her.

Clark smiles. “It’s home,” he says simply.


End file.
